Stranger in the Night
by Lungbarrovian
Summary: A young couple receive a rather startling late-night visitor. Surreal, but not in the least serious. It does contain adult themes.


"Cigarette?"

"Mmm."

Brian leaned across the bed and took the pack and his lighter from the night stand, took a couple out, lit them and passed one to Stefanie. For a while they were content to simply lay back and smoke, basking in a post-coital glaze. Then Brian stirred.

"Gotta take a leak."

Stefanie shifted and frowned as Brian laboriously levered himself up. "Why do you always have to tell me that?"

Brian turned and blinked at her. "What?"

"Whenever you get out to go to the bathroom, you always tell me. Why is that?"

He considered for a moment. "Um. Pass."

"Pass," she muttered, reaching for the ashtray. "What kind of answer is that?"

Brian tugged a t-shirt down over his head and grinned at her. "I don't always tell you, anyway. Sometimes you're asleep."

"So I should be grateful you don't wake up me to tell me?"

"Do you want me to wake you up to tell you?"

She blew a plume of smoke at him. "Go."

Still grinning, Brian went. Stefanie scrunched herself up more comfortably beneath the covers, batting absently at a stray fleck of ash. "And don't forget to wash your hands," she called.

There was silence. Then:

"Um… hon? Could you come here a minute?"

"What? You want me to come and watch? You know, when I said I thought we ought to spice up our sex life, I didn't really mean-"

"No no, really – could you come here?"

Stefanie sighed, stubbed her cigarette out and forced herself up. "Brian, it's cold," she grumbled.

"Mmm."

She grabbed her robe hanging from the back of bedroom door. "This better be good, or I know someone who's going to be spending the rest of this cold night on the couch."

"Ah."

"Not so much 'ah' as 'brrr'." Stefanie shuffled from the bedroom. Brian was standing, not in the bathroom, as she expected, but in the doorway of the living room. "What? What?"

"Um," was all he could say. Stefanie joined him in the doorway and then finally realised why he had been reduced to such a state of speechlessness.

"Oh my."

"Yeah."

There was a blue box in their living room. A big blue box. A big blue panelled box with dirty frosted windows and a lamp on top of its sloping roof. For a moment all Stefanie could do was stare at it, before she finally found her voice.

"Brian?"

"Yeah?"

"I know we got pretty drunk last night, but I don't recall getting so drunk that we dragged this back to the house."

"I don't recall that either."

"Nobody else brought it back with them did they?"

"Nobody else came back to the house with us."

"No, that's right."

"Yeah."

They both stared at the box for a while longer.

"I guess it is real, then."

"Looks kinda real."

"We were drinking wine, not absinthe, or anything like that, right?"

"Right."

"And no drugs of any kind passed our lips."

"Absolutely none."

"Right."

"You don't think maybe Andy and Sara slipped us something?"

"What, spiked our drinks?"

"Yeah."

"No. Not them. Not their style. Anyway, anything this strong they would have kept for themselves."

"Ah."

They stared again.

"Could have been the pizza."

"Pizza?"

"Pizza. It had mushrooms on it. Could have been them."

"Um, well-"

Then, from round the blind side of the box, a man appeared. A very strangely dressed man. He smiled at them. "Hello!" he said, and his accent was strange too.

"Hi," replied Stefanie, after a moment. She had to say something, as Brian seemed to have been reduced to complete speechlessness. She could sympathise.

The man held something up. "Sorry to intrude, but I really, really need to borrow this CD. Life and death, fate of planet Earth type situation. Promise I'll return it. Must dash!"

With that the man vanished. Seconds later, with a sound like a million atomic-powered vacuum cleaners going into overload, the blue box vanished as well, leaving Brian and Stefanie alone with their thoughts – or at least such thoughts as their scrambled mental processes were transmitting.

Eventually though, Stefanie spoke.

"That… didn't really happen, did it?"

"Um… no."

"I mean, it was just…"

"Nuts."

"Nuts. Yeah."

"The pizza."

"The mushrooms."

"Definitely the mushrooms."

"So from now on…"

"No more pizza."

"No, no more pizza with mushrooms. I don't think we ought to blame pizzas in general. Plus I like pizzas."

"Me too. Shall we go back to bed?"

"I think we should, yeah."

Seconds later they were back in bed, the covers pulled up close around them. Neither of them spoke for a while, then Brian said:

"I wonder which CD he took?"

"As he wasn't really there, he didn't really take a CD – did he?"

"No. No, I guess not." A pause. "But…"

"But?"

"But if he really did take one – and if he did need one to save the world – I wonder what he took?"

"So long as he didn't take any of my Blondie stuff, I really don't care."

"Don't you? I mean-"

"Goodnight Brian."

Brian recognised that tone of voice. He rolled over and closed his eyes. "Goodnight hon."

* * *

_**A couple of nights later**_

"Hon? Stef, wake up…"

"Hmmm? Wargh… wassup…"

Stefanie rolled over to face Brian's side of the bed, blinked a couple of times at him, blinked a couple of times at what he was pointing a trembling figure at, and then sat bolt upright. "Oh my."

The blue box was back, this time in their bedroom. And standing beside it, grinning sheepishly, was the strangely dressed man.

"Hello!" he said.

"Hi," replied Stefanie. Brian just bobbed his head mutely.

"Um, I don't know if you remember me…"

"Oh, we remember you okay," answered Stefanie dryly.

"And your box too," added Brian. "Um, by the way, I think you parked it on my shoes."

"Ah." The man looked round, rather crestfallen. "Sorry."

"Oh, they were old shoes. I needed new ones anyway."

"I agree," said Stefanie. "They smelled."

"I said they were old."

This all seemed to throw the man, but only momentarily. "Well, good. Well, you might also remember that I borrowed a CD from you – well, I'd like to return it."

From inside his coat, the man produced a CD case, and leaned across to pass it to Brian.

"Um, thanks," said Brian awkwardly, turning the object over in his hands gingerly.

"You, ah, might notice that I got the band in question to autograph the sleeve. And once I told them what it was I used their music for, and who it was I borrowed the disc from, they also asked me to give you this."

And from his coat the man produced an envelope, which he passed to Stefanie.

"Thanks," she said hesitantly. The man beamed.

"Tickets for their next concert in town, which I believe is next month. Plus some back stage passes. They'd be delighted if you could pop round and meet them. It's not everyday you meet people who were instrumental in saving the world!"

"Uh, really."

"Yes!" The man grinned again and clapped his hands together loudly, making Brian and Stefanie jump. "Well, there you are then. I shall leave you to it. Places to see, people to visit, planets to save…"

"Planets to save?"

"More than you could shake a stick at," replied the man gravely. "But, c'est la vie!" He winked and raised a hand in farewell. "Thanks again then, and sorry for the intrusion. TTFN!"

He vanished back inside the box. And then, like the evening before, the box vanished with the same cacophony as previously.

Brian and Stefanie just sat for a while. Then Stefanie indicated to the CD Brian was holding.

"I didn't know we had that one."

"My brother gave it to me last month."

"But I didn't think you liked that group."

"I don't. I think that's why he gave it to me."

"Oh." She opened the envelope. "Pity to waste these, then."

"Yeah." His face brightened. "Though we could put them on Ebay – make a few dollars."

"They were a present."

"That Jane Fonda workout DVD your mom gave you was a present, but you sold that."

"That's different. Mom thinks I'm fat."

"I don't think you're fat."

Stefanie smiled, and kissed Brian on the nose. "Sometimes you're wonderful."

He looked mock-offended. "Only sometimes?"

"Switch off the light."

He knew that tone of voice as well, and readily obeyed. They snuggled back down together – close together.

"We hadn't been drinking at all, had we?"

"Nope."

"And our pizza was mushroom-free."

"We had chilli, not pizza."

"Well then, that was mushroom free."

"Which means…"

"Which means… no, I don't wanna think about what that means."

"Me neither."

They were quiet for a bit, then Brian said:

"Do you suppose he really used our CD to save the world?"

"Well, we're still here…"

"Yeah, and…?"

"Which means… I guess he did. If he did."

"That's… well…"

"What?"

"Well… silly."

"Extremely."

"Yeah."

Silence again.

"Brian?"

"Yeah?"

"Love you."

"Me too, hon."

"Brian?"

"Yeah?"

"Wanna prove it?"

He chuckled. "Sure, babe."

The bed rustled, and the mattress squeaked. Then it paused.

"Darn."

"What?"

"Gotta take a leak."

"Oh, Brian!"

**THE END**


End file.
